My life closed twice before its close
by Lucky Gun
Summary: A side-epilogue to my ANCon submission, The Hunter. Makes more sense when read together. WARNING: Contains mentions of abuse, self-harm, and possible suicide attempt. READ RESPONSIBLY!


Title: My life closed twice before its close

Author: Lucky Gun

Summary: Per Xenascully's request, I'm doing a side submission for the ANCon challenge: In Dark Side of the Moon, Dean told Sam the night he left for college was the worst of his life. Write that story. This is inspired from my other submission, Hunter.

WARNING: Kinda dark and mentions self-harm/possible suicide attempt, depending on how you read it. DON'T READ if you're vulnerable to triggers.

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><p>It was a small whisper at the edge of his hearing, like a wound half-felt before the nerves finally screamed. It brought him, dropped him, abandoned him at the doorway, his interest piqued and dying as his fears flared into life like a newborn star.<p>

Could he have imagined such a thing? Should he have imagined such a thing? Should blood really be that deep and dark a red? Could a body really hold so much?

Movement, then, faster and fastest, like the last ditch effort of a dying man. Or the effort of trying to save one. Move, move, move...don't stop, don't start. Don't run, don't walk. Hover somewhere in between true and false and life and death and see what that gets you.

God, Jesus Christ, Holy Spirit, blood is hot. Enough of it inside warms. Enough of it outside burns. Be careful what you touch, child; you might lose something valuable.

Move, move, move...don't cry, don't laugh. Don't stand, don't sit.

Move, move, move...

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><p>"What the hell, Dean?" he whispered to the wall, and his cheeks were tight with the untasted saltiness of dried tears.<p>

Behind him, blood. Soaked into sheets. Soaked into the floor. Soaked into his soul. How much was left in his brother?

"What the hell?" he asked again, and he didn't have the energy to be angry.

He should have seen it coming like a black cloud on a sunny spring day. It should have been impossible to miss. Heaven and his smile, that pained, frozen smile, had blotted out the bright light. How did he miss this? How? How?

There it was again, on the edge of his hearing. Two rotations of the world had stood between him and his family and he received news of a hunt gone wrong. He could hear his father's clipped tones, his brother's breathy reassurances. He should've known. He should've known.

"When were you going to tell me, Dean?" he asked, this question echoing through the room like a too-loud child's cry in a funeral parlor.

No answer, though. No pained and frozen and dimmed smile. No movement from the unconscious man before him. Bright red lines stared back at him from skin too sensitive not to scar. Was there anyway to prevent it?

But no, there was nothing but a soft cry in every heartbeat. Even that seemed a struggle.

They'd come back from Heaven in a rush of wings and divine argument. Truth, truth! No, hide and run! Back and forth in a cacophony that memory couldn't maintain. He still couldn't figure who'd won. Because he'd come back whole, and Dean had come back something else.

_Actions have consequences, boy._

That one echo flickered through his mind, a remembered warning and punishment all in one. He should've known. He should've known!

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><p>"Dammit, Sam, I'm fine!" he snapped again, irritated from being reduced from driver to passenger.<p>

Sam bit his lip in a supreme effort of concrete patience, and he fought guilt and fear and pain and joy as he glared out at the open road.

"You're not fine, Dean. You...you aren't. I'm sorry, okay? I didn't think. I didn't...I didn't know. When were you going to tell me? Ever?"

The huff and the eye roll was enough of an answer, and tears blurred the yellow lines. Frustrated, he pulled to the side of the road, breathing heavy. How did he miss it? How did he not know before?

"He can't be there. He can't be," he snarled, one fist clenching on the wheel. A sideways frown, and Sam murmured bitterly, "Dad. He can't be in heaven."

Miffed, Dean shrugged.

"Think what you want, Sammy. He did right by you, even if you couldn't see it until he died."

Shock. Pain. Fear. Anger. Is it possible to feel so much and not break?

"You're kidding, right?"

Another eye roll. He wished they were illegal.

"He never did you wrong, Sam. Tried to prepare you. Tried to make you strong. Tried to protect you. Can't fault the man for that," Dean said nonchalantly, eyes squinting against the bright desert sun.

Sam would have none of it.

Twisting in his seat, he stared hard at his brother. His teacher. His trainer. His protector.

"How many times, Dean?"

Heaven had taken it out of him. That, and...

He didn't even try to fight.

"I lost track, Sam."

Bile rose, nerves quailed, and Sam fought to urge to bite his lip. He had to know. He had to.

"Then why...?"

Dean blinked, then a soft, sad grin crossed his face. A ghost of a real smile.

"Why was the night you left the worst of my life?"

Numb, Sam nodded. Did he really want to know? He should have known! Wounds that always seemed to get worse even when the fight was finished. Trips away from his brother for short lived scout meetings, short-lived clubs, tutoring. All away from his brother. All arranged by his brother. His brother could see them coming. But Sam? No. He should have known.

"Before you left, at least I felt like I was protecting something. You left...and then what did I have to protect? What did I have at all?"

Sam choked.

"Yourself, Dean? Your own life?"

Another dead smile.

"That's not worth the air you took to ask about it, Sam."

Turning forward, Sam breathed simply, deeply, evenly. Time stretched and the car idled. The long road rolled out in front of them without ceasing. It reminded him of his own guilt.

A tickle in his brain, his ear.

"My life closed twice before its close—  
>It yet remains to see<br>If Immortality unveil  
>A third event to me<p>

So huge, so hopeless to conceive  
>As these that twice befell.<br>Parting is all we know of heaven,  
>And all we need of hell."<p>

Blinking, Sam turned, eyes wide, mouth open, but Dean didn't meet his gaze, his own gaze turned inward. Another heartbeat. Another. Another. Another.

Weary eyes met his own, and he just shrugged and said, "You can't kill what's already dead. I've tried."

Sam swallowed hard, and his hand squeezed his brother's shoulder perhaps overly hard. But Dean didn't seem to notice. How much pain was he immune to?

"No, Dean. Promise me. Not again. You promise? Not again."

There was too long a pause.

"I promise, Sam."

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><p>The car tore through the day, burning towards the night. It hugged its cargo carefully, lovingly. What could it do to protect them from the past, the future? It could do nothing. Nearly nothing. So it did all it could. It drove, and drove.<p>

Every mile was one mile farther from that hotel. Maids were just finding it, shocked and horrified by the gore splattered through the room. Blood decorated everything, a garish painting of death and struggle. They pulled up the sheets and towels, cries of _'Mia dios!'_ passing through their lips, and they brought them into the bathroom to soak in the tub.

Only finding there a crimson apology on the mirror, and a still-bloodied knife resting on the edge of the sink.

A painfully, awfully, terribly familiar Bowie hunting knife.

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><p>AN: Sorry! Really dark. But I thought it needed to be. The poem is the same as the title of this story, written by Emily Dickenson.


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